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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28147125">honeyed milk and dying flames</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wickerrose/pseuds/Wickerrose'>Wickerrose</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Life after losing [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>/hj, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bittersweet Ending, Brotherly Affection, Brothers, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Memories, Crying, Dave | Technoblade-centric, Discrimination, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Family Loss, Fantastic Racism, Ghost Wilbur Soot, Ghostbur, Grief/Mourning, Memories, Men Crying, Platonic Relationships, Sleepy Bois Inc as Family, Twins Wilbur Soot &amp; Technoblade, brothers mourning together, i know i'm so original with my metaphors, i should probably have put that first, let hybrids have real world struggles, pigman technoblade supremacy, sleepy bois inc - Freeform, sorry i use a lot of metaphors lmao, spoilers for the 16th of december stream, technoblade was right, whoops, yes i used the hot and cold comparison</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 16:33:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,384</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28147125</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wickerrose/pseuds/Wickerrose</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>losing a twin is often compared to a world shattering event, framed as a moment of raw emotion and messy tears. technoblade disagrees. losing a twin is losing another half of oneself, and it's evident in the way that kitchen tables feel too empty, and time refuses to heal fast enough.</p>
<p>sometimes though, losing a twin can be the cold nipping at your fingertips as your mind wanders in a library late at night in a snowstorm.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dave | Technoblade &amp; Phil watson (mentioned), Dave | Technoblade &amp; TommyInnit, Dave | Technoblade &amp; Wilbur Soot, Dave | Technoblade &amp; Wilbur Soot &amp; TommyInnit, Sleepy Bois Inc - Relationship, Wilbur Soot &amp; Technoblade &amp; TommyInnit &amp; Phil Watson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Life after losing [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2061978</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>174</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>honeyed milk and dying flames</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>!!!SPOILERS FOR THE DECEMBER 16TH LORE STREAMS!!!</p>
<p>trigger warnings for canonical character death, fantasy racism, doubting self worth and emotional content.</p>
<p>i smashed this out in a hour at 5am with no sleep, please go easy on me, haha ^^'</p>
<p>i accept constructive criticism with open arms, and encourage you to comment what you think! sorry that this one is so short, i am very very tired.</p>
<p>anyways, i hope you enjoy!</p>
<p>EDIT: After techno disclaimed the sbi involvement, and things have been cleared up more, i'd like to mention that this fic is no longer canon to the life after losing series, and instead the dynamic is found family. thank you!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He is not a person, he thinks, cold and alone and tucked tight into the hirsute barely-there warmth of his blood red mantle. He is technoblade, the blood good, the warrior, the son of the angel of death and brother of the dead, the voices in his head trill as his ears almost twitch in pursuit of some form of noise to keep his company, searching for the obnoxious noise of his youngest brother shuffling about in the hole under his basement floor where a messy little home has been made. He finds no noise outside of the chorus of whispers in his brain, the howling squalls of whiteout snow and the thundering silence of his sturdy little home. He wonders, distantly, as his glasses mist from his own breath against the musty, cold attic-air of his enchanting room, if he had been born in fields of green instead of valleys of brown desert and blue flame, that he might be heard and not just seen. That, perhaps, if he had human skin and normal ears pressed flat against the sides of his head instead of the swine-esc ones he saw in the reflection of the verglas clinging to his window panes, he would be cared for the way niki cares for captainpuffy, or the way that the now president tubbo once cared for tommy and vice versa. He shivers in the glacial temperatures, truly a creature more suited to the scalding of hellfire against skin than the sting of frostbite on the nose, and thinks back to how he used to know that type of care, used to receive it in the form of 4 mugs of heated honeyed milk; one for each member of the household he grew in, in the form of disc-like glasses and distant melodies. He remembers apologising to his foster father when he fails to recall his age and date of birth a year into his stay, remembers Wilbur lowering his mug to the stained spruce wood and reaching over the table to playfully strike him on the shoulder with blistered and calloused hands.</p>
<p>techno remembers the gapped grin of his 9 year old brother as he smiled and sat down again, “that’s okay techno, you can share mine”</p>
<p>“Share your day of birth?” he responded, eyes wide, broken english spoken in an accented tongue foreign to all of the inhabitants of the overworld.</p>
<p>“Yeah, man! We can be twins, how cool is that?” Wil chimed in with a soft breath to the beverage in his grasp, and an experimental sip to test it’s temperature.</p>
<p>He recalls smiling softly, a fuzzy feeling entering his non-human chest as he turned to philza in search of approval, and a content warmth as a paternal hand was raised to his head and pet behind his ears approvingly, a scalding dram of sweet milk slipping down his throat.</p>
<p>He begins to feel tears sting at his eyes and slide down his furred cheeks, inhaling sharply with a shudder and wiping twice at the unwelcome emotions with cloven fingers before resigning to simply tuck himself deeper into the far corner of the pocket-sized library, chest thrumming with the emotions he had forbode from rising to the surface of his conscience. He is aware Tommy is asleep by now, it is dark outside, the brittle cold blackness of the night sky creeping into the house in the corners left unlit by lanterns and candles. His spot in the icy attic is illuminated by the light of a dying flame, flickering out in a similar manner as that of his resolve for emotional control. </p>
<p>He used to receive that sort of unconditional love from Wilbur, his twin brother of another species, another world. He used to spend hours with Wil inside of blanket forts, sparring in the yard with mossy sticks and their father’s too-big shields, comforting one another whenever thoughts became too loud and smiling too strenuous to attempt. Wilbur, who never once cared for his brother’s otherworldly appearance, his pig-like face and curly pink hair, or cloven hooves and strange skin tone, and instead saw him as a person, a boy to listen to and love just like their 5 year old brother. Someone to share his troubles and hopes and dreams with, and treat as an equal, not as a strange premature piglin-brute outcast. Wilbur, who had burrowed his way into techno’s raw, guarded heart with soft words, music and playful laughter, and built a home in techno’s shape, allowed techno to build a home in his, complete as two halves of the same whole. Wilbur, who is now dead, ran through not just by the blade of their own father, but the repercussions of his own actions too. Wilbur, who’s lifeless corpse was buried beneath the l’mantree, no gravestone in sight of the eyes of the citizens of the city he gave his all to build, instead tucked away behind the house that both his brothers sat in, an andesite headstone with words etched into the plate with shaky hands and yet enough care and love to overwhelm even the most stoic of men and women. Wilbur, who left behind a 16 year old soldier, a son, a father, a country, a legacy, a ghost and an incomplete half.</p>
<p>His anchor was gone now, buried six feet under with his completing half’s body, a husk of his being left to idly wander the lands and write and read all the novels of the world. Phil loved him still, he knew, but they were both raw from the loss, and Tommy's distance spoke for itself. He was hated by his brother’s country with guarantee, only two days prior had the newly instilled president and three soldiers came by with intent of trial, stripping him of his safety, his companion and his self-worth, telling him how his input mattered just as much as that of a pig as they escorted him to what could have been his demise had he forgotten the totem in his panicked rush of potion-making just a few dozen minutes prior. They told him he was an animal, that they didn’t need to listen to him, and he had sat in the small spruce boat with his hands tied behind him and he had thought to himself that they wouldn’t listen as he spoke out against his captors. His small refute indeed went unheard, a murmured “this is discriminatory” in a tongue they couldn’t possibly hope to understand.</p>
<p>Now, in the cold of the night of the arctic winter, with his anchor gone with the wind, he found himself believing them, and craving the warmth of Wilbur's arm over his shoulders, their baby brother leaning softly into his side, weightless. Longing for the flame of their youth to rekindle, for time to reverse and the heat of family to reappear.</p>
<p>Distantly, he recognised how the voices were quiet, how a few whispered blurred words of comfort, how phantom arms circled him and auras of disdain, turmoil and pity seeped from between the pages of the books and planks of their shelves. Even further than that, he breathed in the memory of his father’s heart-wrenching sob, of tommy’s whispered ‘don’t leave me’, of the exact moment his world stopped and started again, and the seat across the table from him as a child was empty, mug of honeyed milk still steaming hot, the memory fresh, yet tainted. Distantly, he notices the sound of feet on floorboards, of ladder rungs creaking under weight, of the teenage boy joining him in the middle of the night, silent as a mouse as he swaps the candle inside of the burnt-out lantern and lights it with his flint and steel. He barely registers as his brother gingerly puts the lantern on the enchanting table nearby and moves to sit down next to him, tense and tired, and obviously unsure, and caring, as he reaches a hand out and interlocks their bitterly cold fingers, squeezes once without making eye contact, and leans into techno’s side, palms resting in one another as the flames of their youth dance in the attic once more.</p>
<p>Distantly, buried in the snow, a well-loved headstone reads in bold; ‘Wilbur soot, the greatest musician and best brother anyone could ask for.’</p>
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